According to the astrologers, when the planets and the stars align a certain way one’s fate is changed for better or worse. So too with the relations among nations. And it looks like the forces currently in play do not favour better US-China relations.

Since the Democrats won control of Congress last year party leaders have been looking for ways to show they can do something. Iraq, which was the big election issue, is not it. Democrats need another issue.

The Republican Party is in disarray. The president’s poll numbers are low and the party is split on immigration, health care, budget issues, and a number of other matters. Republicans are searching for a unifying issue. The presidential candidates meanwhile want to look tough. Lobbyists are seeking pressure point issues. Liberal scholars and the informed public are upset about China’s failure to democratise, human rights abuses and like issues. All of these groups see trashing China as good for business.

During the 2006 campaign, Democrats criticised the Bush administration for the huge US trade deficit and the loss of jobs it caused. China accounted for more of it than any other country last year—over USD 230 billion. Democrats acted. They have written a spate of bills targeting China from out-and-out protectionist measures such as tariffs, to demands for China to revalue its currency. Nearly all of their proposals are not very sound and have little prospects of working. But, they make good press.

The Democratic candidates running for the presidency are generally in synchrony with the rest of the party on the China trade issue. They want union backing, and they find pandering to the unemployed and those affected by job outsourcing and lower wages an effective tactic. They want government intervention. They are not confident free market mechanisms will work. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who otherwise seem to be political enemies, recently agreed to co-sponsor harsh legislation to deal with “unfair Chinese trade practices.” Observers think that if either is elected, China will feel the brunt of new trade laws. All of the other democratic candidates want to take punitive actions against China on trade and/or safety, human rights, and other such issues.

Republicans are different, but are also hostile toward China. They see China as a military threat to the US and America’s Asian allies. They point to China’s huge increases in defense spending (double digit since 1990), it purchasing US$11 billion worth of weapons from the Soviet Union outside budget, knocking down a satellite in orbit, and putting on line a hundred new missiles a year targeting democratic Taiwan. They also cite the military’s lack of transparency.

Republican presidential candidates warn that America is not paying sufficient attention to China’s huge strides forward in military modernization, which, they suggest, comes in large measure from lax US policies on technology transfers and Chinese spying. Some Republicans criticise President Bush for not paying sufficient attention to the “China threat” and for being too distracted in the Middle East. They hardly risk public support for saying this. A few Republicans have joined Democrats in assailing China on trade. They are aware that the polls show that most Americans, even a majority of Republicans now, want “fair trade,” not “free trade.”

Special interest groups in the US have been gearing up for an anti-China offensive. Human rights advocates in particular see opportunities to embarrass US companies doing business with China during the run-up to the Olympic games next year. Some groups employ the term “Genocide Olympics” — a reference to China’s alleged complicity in the mass killings in Darfur. Others see an opportunity to promote their views on the environment (China passed the US to become the largest contributor to greenhouse gases last year.), political prisoners, and Tibet.

The recent scares about tainted Chinese goods, especially foods (China is the third largest exporter of food products to the US) comes at a bad time. It plays into the hands of China critics. Half of the cases of dangerous products hurting or killing Americans can be traced to China. Whether the lobbying groups seek to do good, make a reputation for themselves, hurt their competitors, or extort money from companies that are making huge profits in China, they are having an impact.

American scholars and other China critics castigate China for its failure to implement democratic reform. The Chinese Communist Party’s recent congress provided evidence for this charge. Top officials limited the role of elections in picking new leaders, and in other ways, rejected democracy. Reform was not a central item on the agenda. All of this has contributed to a decline in China’s popularity in the United States. According to the polls, Americans see China as a worse country and more a threat to the US than a year ago or several years ago.

The unusual alignment of political actors in the US against China portends of a year or more of less than cordial relations. One thing that makes all of this worse is that it is an election year in the United States. With elections comes scapegoating. What the critics are saying about China, though, does NOT reflect any major changes in China’s policies or bad trends. Thus one should probably anticipate some months of less friendly but not seriously deteriorating US-China relations.